The prior art discloses the use of book covers in combination with reading lights. In some examples, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,364,344, the reading light and batteries are not housed in the same container, and thus, such an arrangement does not provide a compact and attractive unit. In other examples, such as U.S. Pat. No. 1,202,498 and 3,823,312, a container is mounted on the spine of the book cover to house the batteries. However, in such arrangements, the reading light is disposed outside of the battery container and cannot be stored when not in use. Thus, such arrangements are not compact, are inconvenient to use and store, and are not easily portable.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved combination of a book cover and reading light which overcomes the aforesaid drawbacks of the prior art. Specifically, it is within the contemplation of the present invention to provide an improved device which is simple to use and store, inexpensive, convenient, compact, and portable, and which accommodates all types of books, including paperbacks and hard cover books, as well as books of different sizes and thicknesses.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved combination of a book cover and reading light which is combined into a compact and portable arrangement but yet allows the reading light to be extended over the left-hand page of the book or the right-hand page of the book, so that the user can more easily focus the light where desired.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an improved arrangement which is easy to use and which is easy to store, since the operation of extending the reading light out of the battery container automatically operates to turn on the reading light, and storage is easily accomplished, since it is only necessary to return the reading light to the battery compartment which automatically turns off the reading light.